Number of people in Rep. Jim Oberstar’s Minnesota Eighth Congressional District: 614,935
Number of individuals in his District who donated to Oberstar’s election campaign this year: 1
I’ve long thought that limiting campaign contributions to in-district or in-state might radically cut down on special interest abuse, and Rep. Oberstar is now the poster-child for that notion.
(BTW, Oberstar racked up a perfect liberal 4×4 record by voting for for TARP, the Stimulus, Cap-and Trade and ObamaCare.)
Though I’m going to be concentrating heavily on election coverage the next three weeks, the rest of the world doesn’t stop just because the U.S. is having an election. Here’s a roundup of this week’s problems with Jihad, Islamists, Sharia, Islam, and the Middle East in general. (You might also have noticed that I’ve added a Foreign Policy/Jihad links section.)
So here’s a week’s worth of (mostly depressing) developments:
Advice Goddess Amy Alkon recently got in touch on Facebook via a mutual (non-political) friend. (Yes, I’m on Facebook. No, I don’t take friend requests from people I don’t already have some sort of personal connection to, which excludes most political figures; as one friend put it, “I don’t friend anyone on Facebook who couldn’t pick me out of a police lineup.” I also don’t post political links on my Facebook feed. What would be the point?) Anyway, she’s been doing a lot of coverage on the Jihad front. This week she links the complete text of this Geert Wilders speech that’s well worth reading.
I’m not sure if you noticed, but National Review Online has put up a new blog, Battle ’10, for this year’s elections. It’s well worth checking out if you want to follow various races. (And I’m not saying that just because they linked to me.)
So right after I put this piece on vulnerable Democratic House seats, this New York Times story appears stating that three of the Dem Reps we profiled, Steve Driehaus (OH 1), Suzanne Kosmas (FL 24) and Kathy Dahlkemper (PA 3) have been “triaged” and will no longer receive national Democratic TV advertising buys. As I noted yesterday, all three flipped their ObamaCare votes from No to Yes, two of them (Driehaus and Dahlkemper) as theoretically Pro-Life members of Bart Stupak’s bloc.
So the same party that pressured them to abandon their “deeply held beliefs” to pass ObamaCare is now tossing each of them aside like a used condom. I hope they enjoy the sour lemony tang of those just deserts.
The Times piece goes on to state that the Democrats are now targeting ad buys for Rep. Charles Wilson (OH 6) (not to be confused with late Texas Rep. “Goodtime” Charlie Wilson, of anti-Communist fame), another Stupak-bloc flipper who was not on that list of 72 endangered Democrats, which would indicate there are fewer and fewer “safe” Democratic seats in this election. In addition to ObamaCare, Wilson voted for TARP and the Stimulus, but against Cap-and-Trade. Wilson’s opponent is Bill Johnson, who’s drawn endorsements from Sarah Palin and other GOP heavy hitters.
Although it’s always wise to heed Instapundit’s “don’t get cocky” advice, I like the way Power and Control’s M. Simon Rockford put it: “Republicans at 100+ House seats is looking better every day.”
So how bad are Democratic House members doing this election? According to the National Journal, pretty bad. They count 60 seats among the most competitive and another 19 very close. Of those 79 House seats in play, 72 are currently held by Democrats.
As for where Democrats are spending their money, six of the seven districts the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is spending money on went for Obama by more that 54%. They say that they’re trying to “nail down” relatively easy seats before moving on to harder ones, but that makes absolutely no sense; if you really want to help the marginal seats, you start helping them out first, because they need the most work. No, this smacks of triage, and suggests that the DCCC considers most districts below that line as good as gone.
There are a number of interesting races and names that should be familiar to regular BattleSwarm readers, either from being in Texas or having been mentioned here before:
Chet Edwards (TX 17) comes in at #7. (I would say that Edwards is the last remnant of the old Texas Blue Dogs, but I didn’t know that Henry Cueller (TX-28) was an actual member of the Blue Dog Collation, which Edwards is not.) Edwards voted against ObamaCare and Cap-and-Trade, but did vote for the Stimulus and the TARP bank bailout. District is heavily Republican; went for Bush by 68% in 2000, 70% in 2004, and 67% for McCain. His opponent is Bill Flores.
Suzanne Kosmas (FL 24) comes in at #9 on the list. You may remember this BattleSwarm piece on her back when she was a wavering no vote on ObamaCare; as I predicted, she was easier to flip to a Yes vote that Rep. Jason Altmire (PA 4), who I also profiled, and who stuck to his no vote. Which goes a long way toward explaining why Kosmas is likely to lose her seat, while Altmire isn’t on the list of endangered Democrats. Go figure. She also voted for the Stimulus and Cap-and-Trade. (Kosmos was first elected in 2008, so she didn’t vote on TARP.) District went for Bush in 2000 by 53%, Bush in 2004 by 55%, and McCain by 52%. Her opponent is Sandy Adams.
Indiana’s open 8th congressional district, held by Brad Ellsworth, who is leaving for a Senate run (which polls show he’s currently losing by 17 points), comes in at #11. The contest is between Democrat Trent Van Haaften and Republican Larry Bucshon. Ellsworth was of the theoretically Pro-Life members of the Bart Stupak bloc that rolled over for Nancy Pelosi on ObamaCare. District went for Bush by 57% in 2000, 62% in 2004, and for McCain by 51%.
Steve Driehaus (OH 1) comes in at #16. Another Stupak-blocer who rolled over to let Nancy Pelosi rub his furry belly. In addition to ObamaCare, he voted for the Stimulus and Cap-and-Trade. (He was elected in 2008, and so didn’t vote on TARP.) District went 51% for Bush in both 2000 and 2004, but only 44% for McCain. His opponent is Steve Chabot, who held the seat for 12 years before Driehaus edged him 52%-48% in the Obama wave of 2008.
Kathy Dahlkemper (PA 3) comes in at #20. Yet another turncoat Supak-blocer Pelosi flipped for ObamaCare. Also voted for the Stimulus but against Cap-and-Trade. Wasn’t in Congress when TARP was voted on. District voted 51% for Bush in 2000 and 53% in 2004, and McCain edged Obama by a mere 20 votes in 2008. Her opponent is Mike Kelly.
Speaking of Stupak, Michigan’s open 1st congressional district comes in at #35. Realizing that his betrayal of his Pro-Life position to pass ObamaCare made him electoral toast, Stupak declined to run for reelection, leaving the battle to Democrat Gary McDowell and Republican doctor Dan Benishek. District went for Bush by 52% in 2000 and 53% in 2004, but 50% for Obama.
Ciro Rodriguez (TX-23) is off the list of top 60 races, but shows up in the “Knocking on the Door” section. Another Stupak bloc turncoat. In addition to ObammaCare, he voted for the Stimulus, but against Cap-and-trade and TARP. His district went for Bush by 54% in 200 and 57% in 2004, but for Obama by 51%. His opponent is Francisco “Quico” Canseco. Rodriguez came to national attention recently thanks to his defensive tone when constituents asked him to defend his vote on ObamaCare:
Time permitting, I’ll try to do additional posts on each of those races, plus a few others (including some longer shots that just might pay off in a tidal wave year). But if you’re looking for places your campaign contributions might be the most effective at unseating Democrats, the challengers linked to above are certainly worthy of your consideration.
Instapundit usually puts up good, interesting links, but this one by Cindy Perman on disappearing jobs suffers from the fact that the woman who wrote it has no idea what she’s talking about, at least when it comes to computers:
While computer software engineers, the guys who write the software, are projected to be among the fastest-growing jobs, rising 32 percent over the next 10 years, demand for computer programmers, the guys who write the instructions for a computer to use that software, is expected to shrink 3 percent in the next decade.”
What on earth is she trying to say here? “The instructions for a computer to use that software” are, in fact, the software. Does she mean system architects vs. programmers? Those with engineering degrees and those without? Programmers versus Technical Writers (who tell people how to use software, not computers how to run the software they’re already running)? It’s so incoherent you can’t tell what she means.
As a science fiction writer (I think it was S. M. Stirling) said on a convention panel once: “You ever notice how a newspaper article on a subject you’re an expert in always has lots of errors? Well, all the rest of the articles have just as many errors, you just don’t know it.”
At least the article provides a handy example of why so many “Reporters and Correspondents” jobs are going away…
Some links of potential interest to tide you over the weekend while I work on a more substantial post.
The 25 most dangerous neighborhoods in America. W. Lake St.
(60612) in Chicago tops the list, with two from Texas: E. Lancaster Ave. (76102, 76111, 76103) in Ft. Worth, and Church St. (77550) in Galveston. Las Vegas weighs in with three of the top 10. Biggest surprise for fans of David Simon: Not a single Baltimore neighborhood makes the list.
Speaking of police chiefs, he also had this follow-up on the city of Bell’s police chief and his $400,000-plus annual pension.
Another firsthand account of the One Nation rally, courtesy of one of Jerry Pournelle’s readers: “The rally was sparsely attended and quite small in comparison to the rally led by Glenn Beck. My wife and I both observed a few things such as the large pile of paper signs on the ground in a walk way right below a green party spokesman haranguing the crowd about being green. We also noticed just how overweight if not obese a lot of these people were. Most of the crowd were union members or supporters of some sort. The rest were 9-11 Truthers, communists, or socialists (well at least that’s what their signs said…). There were many signs saying those in my profession [military] are murderers.”